Brandon Iron's "I Love It Rough," a collection of interviews and pairings dealing with the nasty and degrading things consenting adults do to each other, is almost charming.
Produced way back in 2003, the scenes comprising "I Love It Rough" include a tryst between the juicy Jewl De'Nyle and the always-game Steve Holmes, the adorable Julie Night with Manuel Ferrara, and zesty scenes with Ashly More and the British performer Claire Ryder, both of whom I'd never seen before or since. That makes me sad, because they had star power.
But the surprises were the best. This is a welcome side effect of compilation films that makes them time capsules.
Iron interviews Max Hardcore, who is now serving jail time, and the man in the yellow hat defends rough sex as part of "the complete rainbow of emotions" and makes the Jeffersonian point that you don't have to like rough sex in order to recognize its right to exist - even on film.
Calmly, Hardcore explains that his job is "stretching the O rings to the limit. Basically I'm a mechanic. You're gonna throat fuck that thing 'til it collapses."
(Well, that part wasn't charming.)
But then we meet Belladonna and former fiancee Nacho Vidal, interviewed outside a movie theatre. Belladonna exhibits the same twinkle as she does today when she talks about her right to beat or be beaten.
"It's role-playing for me," she says. "If I'm gonna have someone beat me up I'm gonna fuckin' ask for it. Or I'll beat you up if you don't."
Oddly enough, the sex in the movie doesn't seem that rough to me. I guess it was then. Either way, everyone seems to be having a good time.
· Brandon Iron (brandoniron.com)
· Buy "I love It Rough" (gamelink.com)